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Start Crying For Argentina
This article originally appeared in The Daily Capitalist.
In a follow-up to my article on Argentina's road to hyperinflation, it appears that Mrs. de Kirchner is getting nasty in the way all autocrats get nasty: kill the messenger. As mentioned in the previous article, the level of ignorance, stupidity, and demagoguing by de Kirchner and her central bank head, Mercedes Marco del Pont, is vast.
Now that they have set off on the hyperinflationary highway, they deny they have inflation and deny that monetary policy has anything to do with it. To prove it they are punishing private forecasters who contradict the government's false reporting by levying heavy fines on them. The government says they only have 10% annual inflation, but private economists say it's at least 25%.
On Tuesday, the government fined consulting firm Econviews 500,000 pesos ($123,442). It fined the consultancy abeceb.com an equal amount Monday for allegedly publishing inflation estimates that "lack scientific rigor." ...
The government has imposed similar fines against Estudio Bein & Asociados, Finsoport, MyS Consultores, GRA Consultoras and former Indec official Graciela Bevacqua, who used to oversee Indec's consumer price index. Several other firms said they expect to be fined soon. ...
Government officials have said they hope the fines will deter economists from "deceiving" the public into making poor financial decisions by publishing inflation estimates that differ considerably from Indec's CPI data. ...
Government officials deny the fines amount to censorship, saying they want Argentines to have access to "good data." ...
Additionally, a handful of current and former Indec employees, as well as some Economy Ministry officials, have acknowledged in private that Indec fudges its data.
The credibility of Indec's data has been questioned ever since former President Nestor Kirchner replaced longtime civil servants with political appointees in early 2007.
Almost overnight, Indec's estimates started diverging from those in the private sector.
Some critics say the government may have reorganized Indec to lower Argentina's payments on inflation-indexed bonds--claims Indec officials say are bogus. ...
The Economy Ministry spokesman couldn't be reached for comment.
There is no question that Mrs. de Kirchner is acting illegally in violation of their constitution. But when has the mere rule of law ever hindered socialist-fascist autocrats.
It is no secret that Mrs. de Kirchner is very, very close to dictator-for-life Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. In fact he illegally financed her presidential campaign.
In a scandal revealed in a U.S. federal trial, a Chavez agent was caught smuggling bags of cash into Argentina in 2007 to fund the presidential campaign of Mrs. de Kirchner. American-Venezuelan, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson was arrested by police officer María del Luján Telpuk at the Buenos Aires airport with a bag containing $800,000 in cash. Wilson told Officer Telpuk that he had smuggled money into Argentina previously and that there was another $4.2 million on the plane.
The whole financing deal was set up on Chavez's order by Chavez's head of security, Gen. Henry Rangel. Eventually hush money was paid (not to Ms. Telpuk) and Wilson fled. He eventually went to Miami where he made a deal with the FBI to entrap Chavez agents. General Rangel sent agents to Miami to meet with Wilson and bribe him with $2,00,000 of hush money. Wilson was wired during the negotiations and they were convicted, but not before several agents spilled the beans about Chavez and Rangel.
The main agent, Franklin Duran received a 4 year prison term. In October, 2010, Chavez nationalized Mr. Duran's company Industrias Venoco, a supplier of automobile lubricants. There isn't any inflation in Venezuela either, because if companies overcharge, as they accused Mr. Duran's company, they are nationalized. Hugo doesn't like failure.
Mrs. de Kirchner is another Chavezista thug-type caudillo who is running Argentina into the ground. But at least some good came out of it: Officer Telpuk is doing very well. The very beautiful Ms. Telpuk now is an actress and has appeared in the Latin version of Playboy. In one way that's too bad because she was an excellent cop. If you wish more, just Google her name.
You know, if those economists just wait a few months, they can pay the fines off with real cheap pesos.
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"As mentioned in the previous article, the level of ignorance, stupidity, and demagoguing by de Kirchner and her central bank head, Mercedes Marco del Pont, is vast.
Now that they have set off on the hyperinflationary highway, they deny they have inflation and deny that monetary policy has anything to do with it. The government says they only have 10% annual inflation, but private economists say it's at least 25%."
Does this sound at all familliar?? Welcome to the road to perdition!!
Start crying for the US!!
There is no inflation because we say there isn't (where have I heard this before?) and anyone showing otherwise will be fined. The floggings continue, has moral improved yet?
There are still many more miles to travel on the road to Perdition before this house of cards can/will collapse. Just as we all look for extremes in investor sentiment to mark tops and bottoms in the market so must we look for the same extremes among our fellow American/world citizens.
When the average Joe is (finally) openly discussing that they must do this or that to save themselves, only then will we know that an extreme has been reached and the final collapse into hell is nearly upon us. While there is growing unease among the population, for the most part their concern is still small. Few are losing sleep at night about their personal well being. Most people still feel relatively secure. There must be a large majority who feel frightened before the purging can commence. There must be capitulation.
We have many miles to go before we sleep.
So sayeth Steve Liesman.